388 REV. THOMAS BROWN ON THE MOUNTAIN LIMESTONE AND 
J. THE GENERAL COURSE OF THE STRATA. 
The section passes along near high-water mark, the strata being supposed to 
be cut at right angles so as to show their real thickness only, not the space they 
occupy on the shore. From Fife Ness to St Andrews they are laid down in re- 
verse, as if the spectator were looking seaward, and this is done to bring the cor- 
responding portions of the two shores into comparison. 
From Burntisland to Inverteil the great feature is the immense development 
of trap beds, amidst which the sedimentary strata lie conformably. The lime- 
stones G and H,* with other beds as far as Kinghorn, are estuarine, and then 
come the six upper marine limestones, all dipping beneath the great coal-fields. 
Rising at Elie harbour in reverse order the beds are with some difficulty to 
be made out covered as they are at some points by sand or obscured by trap, at 
others as in Woodhaven almost removed by quarrying, and complicated through- 
out by the thirty-fathom fault, yet with patient attention the position of the 
whole series can be well enough traced. The fault cuts the Earlsferry coal-field 
in two, passes along-shore in front of Elie, goes, according to Mr Lanpats, through 
the “ Taft,” may be seen west of Ardross skirting low-water mark till it touches the 
bend of the coast west of Newark, where it seems to vanish.+ Outside this line 
the beds are thrown up and carried (the field geologist well knows how) in the 
direction of their dip far out of the bearing of the same beds as they lie in-shore. 
The middle portion of the coast between Elie and St Monans, consisting of the 
lower beds, is estuarine. Approaching Newark, these strata become remarkably 
contorted, dipping into little basins, but rising at each movement into higher beds, 
till the six marine bands of limestone finally fold over and plunge beneath the 
coal-field at St Monans. Rising again to the east all trap is left behind, and the 
sequence of the whole beds is singularly clear as they lie exposed along the shore 
like the mighty pages of nature’s book. Passing through the same estuarine 
beds the strata beyond Pittenweem rise into bold cliffs, remarkable for the depth 
of the shales which they display, and at that point occurs the limestone L, so im- 
portant in the classification of the whole series. Eastward among the fine rocks 
of the Billow Ness lie the thin limestone bands of the lower series, and the shales 
charged with numerous vegetable remains, continuing down till the anticlinal 
axis is reached at the harbour of Anstruther. From Anstruther to Crail the 
same rocks are repeated—the depth of the whole series, however, being apparently 
greater and—the sandstones especially—more powerfully developed. A red colour 
* Owing to the small size of the section, as given in this paper, it has been impossible to represent 
the separate beds of limestone, or the sub-divisions of the upper group. For the same reason it has 
been found difficult to give the angle of dip with anything like minute accuracy, Some of the lesser 
bendings of the strata are omitted —only the general results could be given. 
+ This point is marked in the section by the letter a. 

